INTRODUCTION 



green country lanes, with sweet pine-odours 

 wafted in the breeze which sighs through the 

 branches, and cloud shadows flitting over far- 

 off blue mountains, while little birds sing their 

 love-songs, and golden-haired children weave 

 garlands of wild roses ; or when in the solemn 

 twilight we listen to wondrous harmonies of 

 Beethoven and Chopin that stir the heart like 

 voices from an unseen world, — at such times 

 one feels that the profoundest answer which 

 science can give to our questionings is but a 

 superficial answer after all. At these moments, 

 when the world seems fullest of beauty, one 

 feels most strongly that it is but the harbinger 

 of something else, — that the ceaseless play of 

 phenomena is no mere sport of Titans, but an 

 orderly scene, with its reason for existing, its 

 ** * One far-ofF divine event 

 To v^^hich the w^hole creation moves.' 



" Difficult as it is to disentangle the elements 

 of reasoning that enter into these complex 

 groups of feeling, one may still see, I think, 

 that it is speculative interest in the world, rather 

 than anxious interest in self, that predominates. 

 The desire for immortality in its lowest phase 

 is merely the outcome of the repugnance we 

 feel toward thinking of the final cessation of 

 vigorous vital activity. Such a feeling is natu- 

 rally strong with healthy people. But in the 

 cxv 



